


and i will hang my head low

by orphan_account



Category: The Crane Wife songs - The Decemberists (song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, when he stumbles upon the white mass in the brush, he thinks it is a woman lying prone on her side, but as it cries again he sees it for what it is: a white crane, felled by a hunter's arrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i will hang my head low

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryvanilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryvanilla/gifts).



> Italicised sections from the lyrics by the Decemberists, which can be found [here](http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858618548/) and [here](http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858618542); listen to it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3cp8LERM70) and [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9JKoCtoox8).

As he picks his way through the forest he shoves one hand deep in his pocket, curling his fingers together for warmth. The ground is hard and frozen and his breath is puffing out in white clouds before him, but he takes a moment to pause and look up at the sky. There is supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.

A cry sounds somewhere in the distance.

He can barely see in the dim fading twilight, but he hurries toward the sound, abandoning his armful of firewood. The wood is dense; he, however, knows it like it is a part of himself.

At first, when he stumbles upon the white mass in the brush, he thinks it is a woman lying prone on her side, but as it cries again he sees it for what it is: a white crane, felled by a hunter's arrow.

In the darkening night sky, the first stars begin to fall.

* * *

"Shh-shh," he says, trying to soothe the crane, muttering low-voiced nonsensical nothings. He can feel her heart quivering wildly under his hands, but she lays still on the battered kitchen table. He fancies that the look in her dark yellow eyes is a trusting one.

"Right," he says. He braces against the chair and gently, gently as possibly, pulls out the arrow; she thrusts violently against his hands and then goes limp.

He throws the arrow aside, into the fire. "Right, my love," he says again. "How's that?"

Her scarlet-stained feathers lift and flutter, as if in response.

* * *

He is sitting down, alone once more, to a meagre supper when there is a hesitant tap-tapping at his door. He cocks his head and frowns; no one comes to visit him anymore.

When he goes to the door she is standing there, the loveliest woman he's ever seen. She is snow-pale, with huge amber-dark eyes; her great curtains of black hair are tied back from her smooth white neck with a red ribbon, and she's dressed in something soft and ivory and entirely too thin for the weather.

"Hello," he says.

She smiles shyly.

He stands back to let her in, and she looks up at him and then drops her eyes quickly. He frowns. "Who are you, then?"

It comes out defensive, and he grimaces to himself, behind her back.

She drags her fingers across his table and the edge of his plate, mutely scrutinising everything he possesses, what little of it there is. She crosses the room and carefully pushes the door open to the next room; the old loom is standing in the middle of it, dusty and unused.

"My mother's," he says lamely as she ducks her head to go across the threshold.

She touches the loom and looks up at him with bright, keen eyes. He nods, and she smiles again.

* * *

With the profits of her weaving he sells his old spindly bed and buys a great, curtained monstrosity for them both, stacked with downy mattresses as high as his waist and mounded with pillows and thick warm blankets. He thinks she likes it, but sometimes she is curiously afraid of the bed, clinging to him like she thinks she might spill off it.

When he brings her fabric to market one brilliantly sunny morning he carefully teases the package open after waving goodbye to her, when she is out of sight; she does not like him to scrutinise it too closely, protecting, he thinks indulgently, her womanly secrets. But it is soft, so soft, softer than anything he's ever felt, lush and snowy and delicate. He would have his bed blanketed with this, rather than the satins and velvets that dress it now, but he knows she would never let him.

In the morning light there is a rosy sheen to the silk. He frowns and squints at the weave, examining it more closely, and now he can see the dark flakes of rust imbedded in the thread, like -

Well, like blood.

He swallows.

* * *

When he comes home she is already closing the door to the room, shutting it firmly behind her. She smiles, but her face is strained and pale, and there are great purple bruises beneath her eyes.

That night, under his touch, her skin is so white it's nearly translucent, a spiderweb of blue veins tracing their way up her wrists and the backs of her hands. He kisses her frail fingers and she pulls him closer, wordlessly drawing him up to her lips.

* * *

He does not want to look.

That's a lie - he does want to look. But he's frightened to. He does not want to upset her; he would do anything to keep that sad, distant look from her eyes. But his feet are drawn on by something greater than himself, his hands are pushing the door open of their own accord, even while his throat closes up with guilt.

He cannot see, for the flurry of white. His first thought is that it is snowing, and then he knows in the next moment that this is absurd - for one thing, it is springtime; for the next, they are indoors.

It is feathers. The room is filled with shifting masses of feathers, billowing through the air, idly defying the laws of gravity. He pushes them aside and peers toward the centre of the room, where he knows the loom is set up; he can see a figure through all the white, but at first he thinks his eyes must be fooling him. At first he sees his wife, his lovely, slim wife, bent over the loom; the next moment she is a crane, pale and fearsome. Her dark hair falls like plush velvet down her back; her great wings are beating the air, and sending the feathers swirling. Skeins of silk tumble over her lap, and she coaxes the white feathers from her black hair, weaving them into the material.

He steps forward; the floorboards creak beneath his feet.

Her head snaps up, and those hollow, dark eyes fix on his.

* * *

She is gone by morning. He stands by the door and he can see her distantly on the horizon, white against the gathering stormclouds. His heart aches; she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. His empty hands work uselessly at his sides.

The silk that fell to the floor when she took flight has collapsed into feathers. They are all he has left of her, he thinks, as the rain begins to fall.


End file.
